| Summary: | Afghanistan, among other countries in the world, is counted as one of the poorest countries and has extremely large gender disparities in education in both urban and rural areas. Dropout is an issue in many countries, especially dropout of girls. In Afghanistan the main cause for girls’ dropout is lack of female teachers, hence Ministry of Education of Afghanistan has put decreasing dropout of girls as a priority and the key strategy is to increase the number of female teachers. I intended to explore the phenomenon of boys’ and girls’ dropout rate in primary schools and I have found different causes of boys’ and girls’ dropout. The dropout of girls and boys are compared in relation to teacher’s sex, moreover, views of parents about the role of female teachers as regards education by girls is discussed. In order to find whether teacher’s sex has influence on girls’ and boys’ dropout and to know the thoughts of dropped out girls and boys about influence of teacher’s sex on their continuation in schools, this study was conducted. The data was collected through questionnaires in 10 boys’ and girls’ schools from grade 1-6 in the urban area of southeast Paktia province of Afghanistan. In addition, final grade exam results of all ten schools were collected and 39 male and 21 female teachers, 50 dropout girls and 50 dropout boys and 25 mothers and 25 fathers were involved. In the above 10 schools one fourth of students were dropped out. The girls taught by male teacher dropped out more compared to girls taught by female teachers. The main cause for dropout was considered by the majority of respondents to be a need of children’s work at their families. Also, it is found that unavailability of female teachers contributes to increased girls’ dropout. The dropped out students and their parents also thought so. The teachers’ sex was not an issue for boys’ dropout.
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